Painting Wet-on-Wet

After learning about painting on dry paper (which I need much more practice doing in order to achieve a smooth effect), the next exercise involved painting with wet paint on wet paper. This method is called painting "wet-on-wet." In addition to painting on a clear wet surface, the method also applies to adding paint to any already wet painted surface.

The exercise involved painting a snowy wood with all wet surfaces. This is the image of the painting from the book. Note that all the edges are very soft.

The goal here was to paint the entire scene on wet paper. A point made was that it is sometimes useful to soak the paper for hours or even overnight and then to let the surface moisture evaporate before applying paint. I am guessing that this is the method the authors used as even if the paper was thoroughly wetted, it would dry too much to complete the entire painting wet-on-wet. Since I didn't soak the paper, I ended up doing a combination of wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry or nearly dry. This is how my painting turned out.

While most of the edges are fairly soft, as are most of the shadows, I ended up using some wet on dry as the paper began to dry too quickly. I would have either needed to keep wetting the paper with clear water (a hassle), or soaking it, in order to have the whole thing reflect a true wet-on-wet appearance. I'm also not sure I would have liked the result more than a mixture of wet-on-wet and wet-on-dry--especially for a painting with a limited color palette like this one. There wouldn't have been enough variety. I think the combination of hard and soft edges makes it a bit more interesting. This painting certainly isn't especially noteworthy, but it is pleasing in its simplicity.

Learning: If you want to do a painting entirely in a wet-on-wet style, it's best to soak the paper instead of just applying a good wetting to it. A combination of soft and hard edges may make a painting more interesting than either all one or the other.